need help with building a new i7 gaming rig

[ruacon]

hi
i want to build a new rig for gaming
so far i found some part for the rig in new egg
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822152185
Corsair Force CSSD-F60GB2-BRKT 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMP6GX3M3A1600C7
Rosewill BRONZE series RBR750-M 750W Continuous@40°C, 80Plus Bronze Certified,Modular Cable Design,Active PFC "Compatible ...
ASUS Rampage III Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601930
this is all i have so far, i still need cpu cooler and some other things.
can you help me with some suggestion on the psu, mobo,
i plan to get a zotac gtx 460 1mb is it a good choice.
also i want to buy some new monitor, maybe 1 27 in monitor or 2 21.5 monitors can you give me some suggestion.
is there anything else i might need for the rig.
my buget is around 2000
thank you for your help

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

There's no need for the Rampage Extreme motherboard for your build. Just because they slap names like "Extreme" on it doesn't mean you need it to overclock or play games with. In the end it's just another X58 chipset motherboard. I'd save $100 and go with the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, it's only $209 but has most of the same technologies and mine overclocks pretty well, you'll have no problems hitting 4GHz on it. The $100 you save can go towards a nicer GPU or something that will give you a noticeable difference in gaming.

If your budget is $2000 then you have plenty of room to expand. For under $2000 my build has a Radeon HD 5870, Corsair H50 water cooler, and 3 Dell st2210 21.5" 1080p monitors in Eyefinity. I would rather have 3 monitors than an SSD, but if you want the SSD and 2 monitors go for it. The GTX4 cards cannot run 3 monitors anyways but then again can only game on one monitor. ATi's Radeon HD5 cards can drive 3 monitors from one card AND span games across all 3 for a surround vision experience.

My build:
Core i7 930 LGA1366
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
OCZ Gold DDR3 1600 6GB
Diamond Radeon HD 5870
WD Caviar Black 640GB SATA III 64MB cache
Antec Nine Hundred case
Antec EA650 PSU
Cheap LG DVD burner (SATA)
Corsair H50 Water Cooler + 2 Rosewill fans in push-pull

Accessories:
Creative Inspire T3100 speakers (had them for years)
Cheap Lite-On PS/2 keyboard (had it for a while, only $5, not terrible)
3x Dell ST2210 21.5" 1920x1080 monitors (DVI, DVI, and DisplayPort to VGA adapter)
Bluetooth Microsoft Mouse 5000 (got one free because I complained to MS that it didn't transfer between PC's well)

In all I paid around $2000 including monitors, not including keyboard, speakers, and mouse. I already had Windows 7 64 Professional from MSDN at school.

 

[farinha]

Regarding your build:
1 - The Corsair is great RAM but overpriced. Get OCZ o Gskill, great quality also but cheaper.
2 - Rosewill are not famous by their PSUs. Get a Corsair, Antec or another known brand. Check this thread: http://www.techist.com/forums/f76/read-first-updated-power-supply-guide-221778/
3 - I agree with Calc, unless you're doing some extreme OC you don't need the extreme board. The one he bought is a great suggestion.
4 - Regarding a CPU heatsink you can get a TRUE, but you need to lap it, Noctua, etc.
5 - The Nvidia 460 is a great GPU but with that budget you can probably get a Nvidia 480 or a ATI HD5870.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I think Rosewill's higher end PSU's are pretty good, I have a 500W from them that is pretty nice and has been running my server without issue for years. They do sell cheap ones as well though, probably not even manufactured by them. In general a good PSU should cost at least $50, under that price point there are a lot of underperformers and poorly rated PSU's that mess with the ratings to put higher numbers on the box.

As for the GTX480 vs. HD5870, with the newest drivers the GTX480 is leading by a larger margin, but it is still $60 more and can't run 3 monitors or do game spanning across multiple displays. If you want multiple monitors I would recommend 3 of them and a 5870 because 2 monitors is useless for gaming. One large monitor may be big but it likely won't have the resolution or desktop area of 3 smaller monitors.

Another option (if you decide to pass on the multi-monitor setup) is 2 GTX460's. Some people claim that 2 GTX460's in SLI is actually better than one GTX480 for about the same price. The disadvantage is that adding another one later may be hard if your motherboard doesn't have the right slot arrangement while you can always add a second 480 when you need one later. Same goes for the 5870, which you can add a second 5870 in CrossFireX to increase performance later.

 

[farinha]

I would buy the 480 instead of 2x460. Like you said, buying one card now makes it easy to add a second one later, the same may not be true for adding a third one.

Regarding the PSU, for a $2000 build I would buy a better brand PSU. Probably a Corsair 850W

 

[ruacon]

thank for all the comment guys.
i decide to go with the multi monitor set up so between the gtx 480 and HD 5870 which one will be a better choice. the 480 can not be gaming on 3 monitor while the HD 5870 can, so it seem the better choice will be the HD 5870 right?

 

[ruacon]

GTX 460 1GB SLI vs. HD 5870 CFX - GeForce GTX 460 1GB SLI vs. Radeon HD 5870 CFX | [H]ard|OCP
according to this the gtx 460 in sli is better than the HD 5870 should i go with the 460 then but then i would not able to add another one, so the choice come down to the 480 or 5870

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

If you go with multi-monitor, I would get the 5870. Here's why:

If you get 2 monitors, you'll only be using one for gaming. You can use either a 5870 or a GTX480 on this setup. The 5870 will let you play games across both monitors, but it is impractical as the center of the combined screen will be at the break between the monitors, making gameplay worthless. I don't recommend 2 monitors for gaming builds, only get 2 monitors if you know you're only playing on 1.

If you get 3 monitors, you can use all 3 for gaming but ONLY if you get the 5870. The 5870 will let you span games across all 3 monitors for a "surround vision" experience. You'll want 3 monitors because you have one center monitor where most of the action happens and the screen breaks aren't as noticeable. Note that the 5870 supports 2 DVI/HDMI/VGA monitors at once, the third monitor absolutely has to be a DisplayPort monitor. If you don't have a DisplayPort monitor, you can use an active (not passive) DisplayPort to VGA or DisplayPort to DVI adapter. The VGA adapter is around $20 and works fine for monitors up to 1920x1080 or 1920x1200. For higher resolutions you'll want the DisplayPort to Dual Link DVI adapter which costs over $100 and needs a USB plug for extra power. I have 3 Dell ST2210 monitors that support DVI/HDMI/VGA input (not DisplayPort) so 2 are hooked up with DVI and the third is using a DisplayPort to VGA adapter.

The 5870, in addition to the spanning mode that makes all monitors appear as one large monitor, also has the normal multi-monitor modes. When you're not gaming, switch to multi-monitor mode so you can full-screen 3 apps at once for productivity. With Profiles (built into the Catalyst drivers) you can easily set up different monitor configurations and switch between them with just 2 clicks. I have 3 monitor Eyefinity for gaming, 3 monitor Extended (multi-monitor mode) for normal use/programming, and single monitor center for when I don't need all 3 monitors (this profile turns off the two side monitors).

To summarize: If you're going to play games, get 3 monitors and a 5870. If you don't want 3 monitors you can run 2 monitors on either the 5870 or GTX480 but only 1 monitor will be used when gaming, the other will be off or showing other apps.



Another thing to look at (if you have the cash) is the Radeon HD 5970. It does all the stuff the 5870 does (so you can do 3 monitor gaming on it) but it has 2 GPU's instead of 1 for almost twice the performance of a 5870. It is the single fastest card around right now but carries a heavy price tag. If money is no object and you want to play Crysis on 3 monitors with high settings, the 5970 would do better than the 5870. Otherwise you can add a second 5870 later if you need the extra power (you can still use 3 monitors while in CrossFireX, in fact you can use the second 5870's monitor outputs and expand up to 6 monitors in a 2x3 grid if you have the right mounting brackets).

 

[ruacon]

with your explanation everything come clear now, thank you for everything, i going to order the parts now and set it up as soon as i get home. you guys are great.

 

[Alive.777]

As far as i know, the Gigabyte X58A ud3r has support for 3 way sli/crossfire so i dont know what the big issue is with running 3 cards? but i personaly would go with the HD5870.